Death Was Never An Option
by lulucute
Summary: Ichigo Ishida... it's harder to write romance than you think...


It would be so easy to forget, to start over. It would be easy to forfeit it all, take the weight off my shoulders and place my weary body down to rest in this earth and give my tired soul a band of forgetfulness...

Ichigo stared at the grave site with its white head stone, overwrought with weeds, not even his father had the decency to clear it out. The orange head boy looked about at the people bending over in the sun and pulling at the crab grass that had grown over the year and others sweeping the site and still others flicking away some lingering dead leaves. He could see some of the grave's owners, staring at the workers with interest or joy, some contempt.

Ichigo looked back at the site, there was no one looking back at him, no black hair and folded arms or thin lipped smile. Ichigo stared at the thin words written on the grave stone; In memory of Ishida Urruyu.' It was a simple little head stone, thin and straight, devoid of decoration of sentiments. Ichigo could feel his fingers itching, his chest burning, and he gave in to himself. He reached into the pocket of his white doctor's uniform and fished out a sliver lighter and from the other pocket a thin white cigar.

"Shit," Ichigo muttered, "I'm becoming my after." Still he clenched the cigar between thin lips and with steady hand, blocked the blue flame against the slight summer's wind. He dragged deep, the hot calming smoke of tobacco filling his lungs and snapping the lighter shut, slipped it into his pocket. He drew hard so that his face thinned, filling his lungs and pulling out the white cigar, held the heat in his lungs for a moment before slowly exhaling. He watched the white smoke float on the tired wind, wondering, when did this all happen?

He took another drag and then threw the cigar down on the ground and outed it with the toe of his black dress shoes and slipped out of the white uniform, showing off the black vest he was wearing underneath, revealing brawny arms to the teasing heat of the summer's air. A young girl near by looked up at him with doe eyes, Ichigo threw the jacket over the head stone and bending over in his black jeans with its silver bone belt, he reached out a hand to the dry crab grass that looked dry in in its nest of drier dirt, his eyes lingered on his wrist where the Quincy cross hung.

It probably happen when it rained. One minute he was walking around with his hands in the pocket of his coat looking at one thing or another and then the rain was falling with ans all encompassing force and a force that blurred the lights of Tokyo. He did what every rational person did, he slipped into the nearest Ramen stand and waited for the rain to stop over the curling heat of the soup. He was staring at the murky depths where a dumpling floated by and wondered what Orihime was doing, probably curled up in bed with the cats, they had four of them; by her demand... not that he had much of a choice when she decided to turn on the charm...

He had the funny feeling someone was watching him and looked up and sure enough there was the white light of glasses that blinded view of eses, an angular white face and then the thin lips and a flicker of light revealed from the shadows the border of black hair. Ichigo was happy to see someone he knew and picking up his bowl, walked over to the other side of the stand where Ishida sat. The black haired man had been nursing some green tea and stank of antiseptic and Ichigo realized he wore an expression of a person who had lost a life to death.

The conversation was sort and curt, Ishida never wanting to say a few words to Ichigo to begin with in the entirety of their lives and he seemed to have even less to say. The rain stopped and people left, but they remained, understanding beyond words passing between them. Ishida got up and Ichigo followed, he never said to follow but he didn't ask him to leave. He wandered into one of the massive hotels just outside of the trader district, the sort with scarlet carpets and bright lights that made it seem as though daylight was caught indoors. Ishida stood silently and waited, the receptionist grovelled over him and seemed ready to kiss his feet, Ishida took his key and walked away, Ichigo followed.

The room was as expected, perfect with white couches and glass table with fruit basket. Wine and rum, flowers and plants, crisp curtains and virgin perfect walls and doors. Ishida went into a room and Ichigo still followed, the bedroom with its perfect white sheets and chocolates on its pillows, heavy drapes, flung open to show it was raining again and the world was once again blurred in a haze of color set against black. The shirt slipped off and the pants came down, Ichigo watched in quite interest, he took white writ and melded lips with the other's, there was no resistance, only the mutual understanding that there was no romance involved. The lay together like men, no interest, no care or concern for the morning or the other, an understanding of necessity and an urgency to satisfy that was almost primeval.

The white eyes of a new day was met by brawn holding whiteness that was almost fragile. They moved away, almost with chastity and bathed away the last evidence of the night before. And then went off to their respective worlds of battle for the smiles of the ignorant who knew not what lay beyond the dark veil of death.

A week later he was transferred to Ishida's hospital, but when Ichigo saw the pale doctor, looked ready to faint with the shock of his presence and his father saying that Ichigo was hired there seemed to put the nail in his coffin. Their world had become abrupt and sharp, the angles and glaring light of their obvious romance seemed to hurt everyone, but time smoothed away the ache for all, the diamond was cut and crested in a relationship that wrapped them in pure moments of insanity where necessity spoke and others where lying in a bare room in some cheap hotel smelling greasy food and looking over the low houses and the distant run of trains the whole scene bright with the fresh rain caused some confession that was unlikely in another situation.

He supposed Orihime always knew but how did she found out? Well they never tried to hide, sharing glances and secret smiles when Ishida came over to dinner or a visit. The children shared then and loved them both, they came to Ishida for honesty and Ichigo for fantasy, Orihime existed for laughter and joy with her skirts for her sons to hide behind and her breasts for the girls to sleep on. Her tenderness for them both, Ichigo and Ishida to share. Then they began to loose him, Ichigo could see it in his eyes. They day the shadow showed was one Christmas night, Orihime on the floor playing with their two sons and there girls clambering all over Ichigo, he looked up and Ishida was standing there, a smile thin on his lips, but there was a dark distance in his eyes that Ichigo could not fathom.

He drifted further and further away, he laughed and smiled as usual, but Ichigo could see the distance in his eyes and when they loved,Ichigo could see he was not distance there. Ichigo fought, he fought hard the nameless battle of the enemy that silently consumed his friend. Then one day, he was gone, Ichigo woke up on his back in one of the dingy hotels with Ishida on his chest, his hands around Ichigo's neck.

"It's funny to think," He said, "I could have killed you while you were sleeping. The man who fighs so hard do survive and overcome, your life's work, weak little me could have destroyed in a few seconds." In his eyes, Ichigo could see he was gone.

"You have so much to live for Ichigo," He went on, getting up off of him and pulling on his shirt, "for you, death is not an option." He dressed and left the room, glancing back only once to say, "If I went to hell, would you follow me?" Ichigo did follow him, out of the room, pulling on clothes as he went, he even drove him home but then, two days later, a mile from where they had last loved on the train tracks, they found his body, ripped to pieces by a train.

Ichigo dusted his hands in his pants and looked at his handiwork. The grave was clean, white lilies stood there in a crystal vase. Ichigo fished out another cigar and lit it, he couldn't say why he kept the custom, the Sereitei had found Ishida living in the Rangokai. Ichigo went over to see him several times, he was such an open and free person, lively and fun, it was weird to him, but that was what a soul was like before things changed them and made them into a Kenpachi or Byakuya. The badge went off loudly, Ichigo popped a candy and rushed though the white stoned grave yard, souls staring at him. The hollow was large, Ichigo tried a few swipes, but it's hull was hard, he didn't have time for this, he had to go back to his mother's grave where his family was waiting.

"Bankai." Ichigo muttered the zanpactu was white, Ichigo sighed and looked up at the hollow rushing at him. He never gave Ishida an answer to his question, would he follow him to hell? Yes, he would follow him to the very depths of it hand kiss the devil himself if that is what Ishida would do. The hollow swung down on him, was death an option? Ichigo caught the blade, no, death was never an option.

**AN- Doing this for a competition... I tried to avoid OOC-ness... I thought this would have been easy... it's harder to think about these two romantically than you think.. this was all think of, though after my deadline, I think I will think of something better.. it works funny...**


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